


Puer de Tenebris

by Professor_Hallewell



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Pastel Dan and Punk Phil, Punk and pastel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2019-10-22 00:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17652437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Professor_Hallewell/pseuds/Professor_Hallewell
Summary: Usual Punk and Pastel AU entwined with the Soulmates AUIn where you are born with words permanently written on your wrist, these words read what the first thing your soulmate says to you directly. Dan's soulmark wasn't the prettiest thing to read, be he didn't let that shape his life as he became one of the most joyful people to be around. Phil on the other hand was a dark stranger to Dan, one that said 'don't approach me'. What happens when these two bump into each other?





	1. Chapter 1

Sunlight drifts through the slightly open curtains into the quiet room, landing on a pastel themed flower crown sitting upon the back rest of a desk chair. An alarm sound soon resonates, waking the only person in the room. A hand reaches out from the pile of light pink of purple blankets on the bed and stumbles around to find the source of the noise, before effectively turning it off. The slightly tanned hand rests of the bedside table for a moment before it slowly slides back under the blankets. A head with curly, chocolate hair sticks out from under the blankets with a grown, rubbing at his eye with his left hand when the door to the bedroom opens.

“Dan!” exclaims a younger boy from the doorway.

“Mmm, I’m up, I’m up,” Dam grumbles, pulling the blanket off from himself.

The younger boy grins and runs off, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Dan sighs, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. He sits in bed for a moment, legs dangling over the side before his eyes go wide. Today was the start of his final year at school. He grins, _finally_. Hoping off the bed, he heads to the bathroom to take a short shower and get dressed into today’s attire. Some light blue booty jeans with a white shirt showing a cat on the front and a snug pink hoodie and his baby blue flower crown, perfect.

He makes his way downstairs to kitchen, giving the cat, Suki, a rub in the head as he passes her. He had his stuff already packed and organised sitting on the sofa from last night, a quick breakfast and Dan’s off for the day. He’s about the send a text when he notices his soul mark on his wrist, covered by all his wrist bands and charm bracelets. _Could you watch where you’re going thanks, Sunshine?_

Dan could tell from a young age that ‘sunshine’ was not meant in a nice way, but yet he powered on, becoming the bright person he is today. He smiles sightly and snorts, he’s glad he hasn't met his asshole of a soulmate yet, he is sure his life would probably a whole lot worse and depressing. He sends a text to his friend Chris, asking if he’s catching the bus to school today.

He replies a few seconds later, saying that he is with an added smiley face.

Dan smiles at the text and puts his earphones in, sliding his colourful cased phone into his pocket. He bounced along to his music, soon catching up to his friend at the bus stop. He calls out to him and takes and earphone out.

“Chris!”

Chris turns to him with a grin, “Dan! Long time, no see.”

“I know right,” Dan says, laughing and hugging Chris.

The two of them chat about the things they did over the holidays and a few new games that had come out, finding their respective spots on the bus when it arrives. The trip only takes a short fifteen minutes, with Louise and Peej joining them through the trip. They continue chatting away with each other until the bus pulls up to the school bus bay and the crew get out. Dan and his friends start heading over to the lockers to get their stuff ready for the day.

“Oh, you know, Zoe found her soulmate over the break,” Louise states excitedly.

“What’s their name?” Dan asks, curious of Louise’s friend.

“Alfie, I believe,” she says with her bright smile.

“I feel like I know him from somewhere,” Pj says, rubbing his chin in thought.

Chris snorts, “From where? I don’t think I've ever heard his name in the school’s system. Alfie the great mysterious man!”

“Knock it off,” Dan punches Chris in the arm lightly, chuckling.

“You've injured me greatly,” Chris feigns being injured and fall back on an unexpecting Pj, who manages to catch him just before he hits the floor.

Louise laughs at the two of them.

The two of them are soulmates, they’d met back in eighth grade after Dan has befriended the new kid Pj from Drama class and introduced to his only friend at the time, Chris. Chris had exclaimed with wide arms ‘would you look at those curls!’ at Pj who’d blushed and quietly said ‘thanks, I’ve had them since I was born’. They’d been a hot right off. Dan felt like it was an intimate thing that’d he witnessed since people didn’t like to show off their soul marks as such as other. Chris had been one to keep his mark out on display without a care while Dan keep his covered most of the time but didn’t worry too much about it.

“Oh no, guess you’ll die then,” Dan grins, swinging his hips to the left and sassily putting his left hand on them.

“Can’t believe you two, especially you, Chris” Peej says with exasperation.

“You love it though” Chris says, poking Pj’s nose from his spot in his boyfriend’s arms.

“Maybe,” Pj answers, looking down at Chris with a goofy smile.

Dan smiles widely at the two and pulls the rest out from his locker before shutting it, slinging his heavier bag over his shoulder. He checks his schedule, he has home group Chris, music with Pj and then science with Louise before first break. Louise and Pj head off to their respected classrooms while Dan stay to wait with Chris.

“Right, you ready to go yet or...?” Dan asks with a smirk.

“Patience is key young Daniel,” Chris says, pulling his bag up from the ground.

“And yet home group starts in about a minute,” he huffs out, still smiling.

“Fine, just let me get my folder,” he pulls out said folder and locks his locker.

They both head off to home group and sit at their usual seats as their other classmates file in. Chris turns to Dan with a mischievous smile.

“So, found your soulmate yet?” He knew Dan’s wasn’t a particularly nice one, but he’s said once that they could have been in a rush or making a joke, Dan had tried to agree but it didn’t feel right.

“Thankfully not,” Dan laughs, waving his hand about. “Otherwise you’d never hear the end of it.”

“Yeah, but you might want to keep them all to yourself!” Chris states, “Young Daniel, kept at bay because of how unimaginably gorgeous his soulmate looks.”

Dan raises an eyebrow, “And I’m not already too gorgeous? How rude are you?”

They laugh together.

“On other news, I saw Andrew staring at your ass before when we walked into school,” Chris bounces his eyebrows.

Dan snorts, before making a joke “Eww, doesn’t he have anything better to do?”

Chris snickers.

Andrew was that one person who liked to date everyone he could get his hands on and is kind of really disgusting in his behaviours and everything else he does.

“Like, I know I’m incredibly, stereotypically gay for a bisexual guy, but I still have standards and that boy, does not meet any of them even closely,” Dan continues with an exaggerated posh brit look.

The rest of the morning goes along quite slowly, all the new students for this year bustling about and trying to get to class on time in between the lessons. Dan could deal with it, and also use it to his advantage to be late, but they were still kind of annoying, especially when one particularly short one bumped into him and almost knocked his flower crown off when he was heading into the cafeteria.

Louise sees it happen and quickly helps steady him with a loud laugh, her hands holding Dan up by his armpits. He blows the hair that had landed over his face away with a grumpy expression forming on his face, the freshman who had knocked over Dan looks like a deer trapped in head lights. Dan gives them and unimpressed look and watches as they say a quiet sorry before hurriedly walking off.

“God, I’m not that hard to see,” Dan mumbles, getting back up onto his feet.

Louise giggles, “I’m sure you aren’t, Hun.”

There’s a sudden clap of a hand on Dans’ shoulder as they’re walking to the cafeteria. “With your clothing choice, I think you bring the attention of everyone’s eyes.”

He looks over his shoulder to see Chris, a grin spreads across his face. “You bet, I’m the walking embodiment of sunshine.”

Chris grins too, chuckling, “Definitely.”

Dan clasps his hands together, “Right, what’s for lunch today, losers?”

“Lasagne I think,” Louise replies, “but I’ve got my own lunch, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Fair enough,” Dan says, putting his bag back on his shoulder more comfortably.

After grabbing some food with Chris, he and Dan walk over to their bench all the way out at the end of the other benches near some of the trees. Collectively they loved the spot, especially Dan, since the tree above them had really nice flowers in spring. Though there were the draw backs, like how they got a clear view of where the punks would hang out behind the science block, smoking whatever they did and being total weirdos in Dan’s opinion.

“Hey Pj, Tyler,” Dan says, sitting down in the middle of one side of the table next to Chris.

“Hey Dan,” they said in turn, Tyler being a bit too enthusiastic for the cold weather.

Chris leans over to Dan and murmurs quietly, “looks like Phil’s here today.”

Dan follows Chris’s gaze to where Phil’s standing with two mates of his, leaning against the wall and chatting. They didn’t particularly like his group mainly because of what they look like, but also because Phil is a quiet but deadly kind of person. The black hair pushed to the side of his face and skin white as paper look vampire like, and with the added piercings and tattoos just make him look plain scary. Dan had heard once that Phil had killed a person and chose to avoid him like the plague.

“But it’s the first day of school, why’s he here?” Dan says back.

“Probably to scare the new kids,” Chris answers back.

Dan looks over at Chris, “but wouldn’t he wait for them to settle in before scaring the living daylights out of them?”

“I have no idea man; do I look like I’d know what he thinks?”

“I dunno,” Dan shrugs his shoulders.

“What are you two gossiping about over there,” Louise asks.

Dan looks over at her, Chris following suit.

Chris answers, “Phil’s here today.”

“Oh,” Louise says.

“Yeah, ‘oh’ indeed,” Dan snorts. “Maybe he’s here early to pick off his next victim.”

He casts another look over at Phil and finds him already staring at him. Phil squints his eyes with a scowl that makes Dan’s face flush red with the embarrassment of being caught and turns back to his friends, tuning into their conversation which had changed to something about a maths test. Dan looks at Phil again from the corner of his eye and sees him talking with his friends again, hopefully not about himself or his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elli chaps, welcome to some random fic I started writting in spite of myself :D


	2. Chapter 2

Dan’s sitting in maths class, minding his business and playing with his wrist bangles and bracelets on his right arm when Chris asks him again how his soulmate hunt is going. The question is surprisingly random and he questions why his friend had bought it up. Dan looks at Chris with a ‘seriously?’ expression while also showing his fondness for his friend through a smile and a head shake.

“You’re such a nob,” Dan jokes, subconsciously resting his left hand over where his soul mark lays hidden and facing his friend.

“But seriously, when do you think you’ll find them? What if they live in Australia?!” Chris exclaims, an expression of mock horror on his face.

Dan screws his face up, he’d thought of that already from a while ago, it was not fun to think about. It was a possibility that could happen, although why would he need to go to Australia for? “No, I doubt it.”

“But there’s so many people in this school, why have you not bumped into them yet? I bet they’re someone you’ve seen but actually haven’t talked to them yet.”

“Well maybe they don’t go to this school, maybe they don’t even go to school anymore, what if they go to college or work?”

Chris hums in acknowledgement, “I’d still be crazy though, imagine you end up in Australia going on holiday or something and meet them, or Africa! Maybe they don’t even speak English and you got absolutely pranked by fate with your mark being translated for you.”

Dan snorts, “You say that like I’m rich and I go traveling all them time.”

“Well, aren’t you? You look rich enough,” Chris laughs.

“Pfft, I look more like a spork,” Dan says.

Chris laughs louder at his joke, which causes the teacher to turn to them and tell them to quieten down. Chris and Dan grin at each other and go back to their work, snickering slightly. Dan writes down the answer to a question before he starts scribbling on the bottom of his page. He sighs, a light smile staying on his face from his and Chris’ banter.

As he’s drawing the hair on the little head he’s drawing, Dan hears something get thrown over to the left side of the classroom and the teacher tell off Phil and Felix to stop throwing paper at each other. He looks over towards where Phil is siting. He watches as Phil says something quietly to Felix and then they both look like they’re trying to keep from laughing.

It makes Dan then wonder, he’s never actually heard Phil’s voice directly at him, from the two or so years Dan has known of him. There was also the fact he always wore long sleeved clothing, maybe he had something really embarrassing for his soul mark and didn’t want anyone else to see it?

Dan purses his lips, staring at the dark p!atd jacket Phil had on, it looked to be an old one if how worn it looks is anything to go off of. It looks pretty cool, not exactly Dan’s first choice in clothing, but it still looks nice.

It is as Phil could feel someone looking at him. He turns his head towards Dan and the two of them make eye contact once again. Dan notes that he can see his two lip piercings from here. It takes him a moment to realise that he’s staring before ends up like the other day, blushing from the embarrassment. He turns away to his maths work and holds his jumper sleeve covered hand to his mouth, giving out a quiet sigh of annoyance for allowing himself to get caught staring again. The look on Phil’s face is now definitely going to be stuck in his mind for at least the next month and a half, the scowled expression with also the curiosity that his eyes held. He looks over to Chris to get his mind off Phil and is taken aback when Chris is looking at him with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

Dan raises his own eyebrow in confusion. “What?” he whispers quietly.

“You were staring a little too long at Lester then,” he answers.

Dan’s face heats up more, and he hope Chris doesn’t catch it, “No, I was just looking at his ugly face and wondering how someone can end up looking like that and still be in school.” Honestly though Dan has really never minded how Phil looks. He had had glasses on that one-time Dan saw him after school at a coffee shop, and he didn’t look that horrible in them, he’d looked kind of hot in Dan’s opinion, but he’d never admit it to Chris any time soon.

“I’m sure that’s the case,” Chris’s grin grows.

Dan huffs and put his face in the crook of his elbow on the table, a groan emitting from him. “Just drop it, Chris, I just wanted to know if we’re still going to that party on Saturday,” his voice is muffled, but Chris still hears it.

“Oh yeah, the one that Mark’s hosting? Yep, I know that Pj and I are still going, and Louise and Tyler haven’t mentioned not coming, so I’m not sure about them. But yeah, I’m definitely going, who’d want to miss out on one of Mark’s parties?” Chris answers.

Dan moves his head to the left to face Chris, some of his curly hair partly covering his eyes. He huffs, “Good, I didn’t want to be stuck with a possibly drunk and emotional Louise or stand there awkwardly in t of somethinghe corner by myself with a possibly spiked drink.”

“I’m sure neither of those things would have happened if we hadn’t gone,” he states, “and why would you go alone? I’m pretty sure nearly everyone is coming, including Andrew.”

“You never know,” Dan says, his eyes looking down at the pen on his book. He briefly wonders in Phil would be going, but brushes it away without much thought. He starts thing about what he’d wear, it’d have to be something dark so if he spilled any drinks or food on his clothes that they wouldn’t get ruined.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter today sorry, promise that the next one is going to be longer though.


	3. Chapter 3

The slick, silver car pulls to a halt outside of Mark’s fairly large house and Dan’s already staring at the place in awe. His house looks amazing, especially with all the flower plants out the front gardens complementing the maroon roof and cream walls of the building.

“Woah,” he breaths, face near pushed up against the car’s window.

“Wait ‘til you get inside, it’s like the Tardis,” Chris says with an excited grin.

He’s been over once for an earlier birthday celebration party a year back that Dan had missed out as he had been in London with his family. Pj parks the car and the three of them climb out, Dan staring up at the house with a grin while Pj and Chris grab the drinks and chips they brought from the boot.

Chris comes up to him and talks practically in his ear, “you excited? Bet this is your first proper party since your parents don’t let you go.”

It is true, he’d told his parents that he’d be going over to Chris’s to spend the night as the group (being Chris, Pj and Dan) has decided to go to Chris’s place after the partying finished. A sleep over was intended, with Dan sleeping on the sofa.

Dan shoves Chris shoulder, knowing was he said was true, before chuckling sightly, “I have so, I went to your birthday party not too long ago.”

Chris pulls a face, “You know what I mean.”

Dan laughs at that and Chris turns before heading towards house. Deciding to follow Chris, his laugh slowly quietens out as he walks with Pj trailing after the two of them holding a six pack of beer in his hand. Chris knocks on the door loudly and takes a step back. There’s some yelling from far in the house, along with the quiet hum of party music, before there’s some sounds behind the door and it’s pulled wide open.

“Chris, Pj, Dan! Glad to see you here,” the black and dyed red head says with a wide smile.

“Super excited,” Dan says with a grin. “Missed the last one as you know.”

Mark nods his head, possibly remembering it from some point. He steps back to let them in, “Don’t want to keep you guys outside, the night cold will be settling soon.”

Mark was right. Winter was next week, so naturally Dan had worn a large light sky-blue jumper that hung at mid-thigh and gave him sweater paws with some skinny black jeans (although he’d originally wanted to wear his white ones, but decided otherwise as to prevent possible stains). He had also opted to bring a purple flower crown, a nice one, but not one that’d he regret deeply if he were to lose it.

The trio walk past Mark, Chris leading them expertly to the lounge room whilst Peej went into the kitchen to put the drinks somewhere cold. Dan looks around, taking note that there were only five or so other people. He sees Louise over on a sofa talking loudly to Jack, the both of them were loud on their own, but together it was like some yelling into a megaphone that was set to loud.

“Louise! There you are,” Dan says, swaying his hips animatedly as he walks over to the two of them while Chris decides to go join Pj.

Louise laughs at Dan’s behaviour, making Dan grin before he says, “the party can finally start that I’m here now.”

“Oh good, thought we were never gonna get this party started,” Jack jokes, sarcastically rolling his eyes with a smile.

Dan finger guns over at Jack and looks at him through one eye, “see, this man gets it.”

Jack and Louise share a laugh before the three of them are comfortably talking about any random things that come up in the conversation, including some of the new games that came out or any updates to some favourites since both Dan and Jack love gaming. He soon found himself staying by Louise and Jack talking as an hour and a half pass by and most of the party guests have arrived, a few ‘fashionably late’ comers were just arriving as the sun starts setting over the horizon.

Mark joins the three of them as soon as he’s sure everyone is good and sorted, sitting on the arm rest with his socked feet on the sofa and his arms resting on his knees. He grins at Jack and sends him a wink, Dan’s sure it’s a private joke between them but he can’t help feeling like he wasn’t supposed to see it. He turns to Louise to cover himself.

“So, I heard someone found a dead body behind the gym today,” he says obnoxiously loud with a grin, just fucking with anyone who heard him and drawing attention to himself.  

Louise is surprised for a moment, somewhat speechless, “wait really?”

Dan laughs, “No, I’m kidding. Oh my god, Louise. There would of been police at school if that’d happened.”

“Oh,” Louise snorts.

They chuckle with each other, before Chris comes out of nowhere and is dragging Dan over to the kitchen island. Louise gives him a look of sympathy. He turns to see that on the marble counter top there lays a few red, plastic shot cups and a bottle of vodka in Pj’s hand. Dan’s eyes widen.

“Oh, shots already?” he says, gesturing at the bottle.

Chris pulls him up to the island, “What, are you afraid to get drunk?”

“No,” he replies hesitantly.

“Also, it’s past eight so we’re good to drink now,” his friend states.

“Barely,” Dan grumbles, leaning on the counter top while Peej pours some drink for them, he was the driver, so he wouldn’t be having any drinks with Chris and Dan. It looks like a type flavoured vodka, maybe raspberry or cherry.

Chris slides one of the small cups over to Dan and takes one in his hand. “In three.”

Dan picks his up and Chris starts the countdown.

“Three, two, one”

The two of them tip their heads back a swallow the drink with one gulp, the cup landing loudly on the table and Dan slams his hand down on the counter top, definitely raspberry flavoured. His throat burns from the drink, but it wasn’t a super painful experience. Dan throws his hands in the air with clear excitement, exclaiming out a loud ‘woo’ sound and they take a few more shots. A few people gather around to watch the two, cheering them on with each shot while some also nurse an alcoholic drink of their own. After a few more than ten each, Pj raises an eyebrow at the two and puts the second empty bottle on the table.

“Awww, but I want to take more,” Chris wines, holding onto Pj’s arm.

“You don’t need anymore,” he hums, smiling down at his boyfriend.

Chris giggles, and Dan find himself giggling with him for no particular reason asides that Chris is doing it. A few people chuckle at how the alcohol had already taken affect on the two lightweights. They take their leave to go elsewhere, probably to the living room where the dj was at Dan thinks. His mind has started to become fuzzy already with him blissfully unaware of any consequences that were to follow later this night. Dan spies a bottle of something that may be blueberry vodka and takes it away from Pj’s view, walking out into the living room.

“Louise!”

Louise it is talking with another girl, looks to be the friend Zoe that she mentioned time to time. She turns to see who called her name and her eyes land on a slightly tipsy Dan. She sighs, beckoning him over.

“Hey you,” he says to Zoe, giggling. 

“Is he okay?” She asks.

“Yeah, I hope so. Dan, you need to lay off the drinks, who knows how bad your hangover is going to tomorrow if you’re already like this,” Louise says.

“I’m fine,” Dan reassures, taking a sip from his bottle. He coughs at the flavour and burn, it was very different from the raspberry he’d just been drinking.

Louise tilts her head to the side, “Why do I doubt you?”

“Cause you don’t have enough confidence in me,” Dan says with an accusatory expression before grinning. “Anyways, I’m off to go do some dancing, care to join me?”

“I think I’ll stick back with Zoe here,”

Ah, it is Zoe. “Fine then, be like that, I’ll go fine someone else to dance with,” he says and marches off to the dance floor in front of the dj’s area.

Turns out that someone else was no one else for about ten minutes before an also drunk looking Shane Dawson joins him. Dan had known Shane through Tyler, and they had talked occasionally when they saw each other at school and sometimes in public when he had the chance.

They laugh together as they do stupid and ridiculous dances moves, if you could call them that. Louise and Zoe were off to the side lines watching them with grins and barely held back laughter. A few people were watching them, a few others dancing and some too drunk to tell what is actually going on around them and just laying about on the furniture and floor.

Dan puts his finished drink bottle on the closest counter top and turns back to Shane with a grin. His expression quickly drops, and Shane can tell even through his drunk haze that something’s not right.

“You okay, Dan?” he asks, voice slurred.

Dan can feel his gut feel turn upside down, he holds his stomach, “I need, I got to-“

He runs past Shane and towards the back door. There’re heaps of people in the way and he shoves past them, not bothering to say sorry as he races for the bushes in the park garden. He slams into someone and they nearly go falling, an arm wraps around him to stop his fall. He quickly pushes himself off the person, not bothering to check if they’re okay and scrabbles his way off the wooden porch.

“Could you watch where you’re going thanks, Sunshine?”

“Oh, get lost you absolute spork,” he calls back weakly, not looking behind him.

He stumbles and falls to his knees, emptying his gut into the bushes just barely in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly longer chapter as promised.


	4. Chapter 4

It isn’t until the next morning when he’s laying on the sofa in what looks to be Chris’s place that he feels like death hit him over the head with a metal chair. He groans, rolling onto his side with his hand hanging off the side of the dull red sofa, his head is pounding, and his limbs are sore and heavy. He lays there, not wanting to move an inch and regretting last nights’ activities. He opens his eyes and winces from the light filtering through the window and into the room, ‘ _maybe it’s around midday_ ’ Dan wonders and decidedly just stares blankly at a magazine on the oak coffee table.

It takes a moment to realise what kind of magazine is it. Dan screws his face up and redirects his eyes to study the rug, a porn mag, of course, what else would he expect to be at Chris’s place _in the lounge room_. He sighs and chooses to ignore ever seeing it, hoping that Chris had accidently brought that back from the party. He's dragged from his thoughts when someone walks over and sets a cup of water down on the table in front of him. Dan looks up from his spot on the sofa and sees Pj staring down at him in a fluffy, grey robe with a smirk and a mug in hand.

“Good morning,” he hums. “I’ve got you some panadol and water for your headache, though I can’t imagine it’d be that bad since you did vomit out most of the alcohol yesterday.”

Dan groans again, “That’d explain my throat then.” Whenever he had done that fun activity yesterday, it had left him with a sore throat afterwards and even now he could still taste the mix of stomach acid and vodka in his mouth. He obnoxiously smacks his lips together in disgust, and slowly reaches out for the cup of water with the panadol. He sits up and gulps them down quickly.

Peej walks over to the recliner sofa and takes a seat with some book he must have been reading lately. Dan sits half-awake on the sofa, feet on the cold faux wooden floor, trying to remember what had happened yesterday. He’d talked with Louise and Jack for a while and then started taking shots with Chris, that must have been where the hangover had started from, and mostly everything after that is a blur aside from a few things here and there like seeing Dawson.

“What the fuck happened last night?” Dan asks, still staring ahead at the coffee table. 

Pj doesn’t look up from his book, “well besides getting hammed, dancing like a loon and practically vomiting out all your insides into the back garden in front of a few people?”

“Uggh, are you kidding me?” Dan asks with a groan of annoyance and embarrassment, then he notices he’s still wearing his clothes from yesterday, but his jumper is folded on the end up the sofa and his flower crown is nowhere in sight.

Pj hesitates before answering, “Well I also heard you also slammed straight into... I think it was, Lester? Yeah, Phil. Apparently, he was really angry about it too.. fuming, you could say.” He ends with a teasing note, but isn't sure if Dan actually picks up on it with his hangover. 

Dan is mortified, anyone but Lester would have been fine, even Andrew, and the punk’s probably going to kill him now when they get back to school on Monday. His expression probably reflects his thoughts because when Pj looks up, he chuckles in amusement.

“Seriously, Dan, you’ll be fine, he’s not going to beat you up over it,”

“He’s gonna murder me, leave me to rot in the bottom of the sewers,” Dan says quietly, not replying to Pj’s comment.

Peej scoffs, shakes his head, and goes back to his book and coffee.

Dan sits there a moment longer before dragging himself off the sofa and hobbling to the bathroom with his travel bag. His head is pounding, in a way that isn’t usual with him, and he hopes a cold shower, with any luck, will help.

\-----

When Dan’s finished in the bathroom and sitting back on the sofa, Chris slowly makes his way from his room into the living room, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. Dan looks up at from his spot on the sofa and mumbles out a quiet ‘hey’ Chris gives him a hum of acknowledgement and stands there for a moment to take in the scene of this morning. Peej’s now out in the kitchen making brunch, and eventually Chris realise this and goes off to see his boyfriend.

Dan’s head still hurts, like a small pain in his back of his thoughts rearing its’ head in a way of not wanting to be ignored. He lays back down on the sofa and closes his eyes, wishing the pain to leave him be, he’d have to go home and face his mum while obviously hungover later today. That really didn’t sound like a good idea and she’d never let him out to a party until he moves out with his soulmate or otherwise.

“You eating?” Pj calls from the kitchen.

“Uh, yeah, maybe,” Dan yells half-heartedly back.

“Well, I’m almost finished if you wanna grab another drink of water and take a seat at the table,” he says.

The curly-haired pastel hums, dragging himself up once again and heading off to do as he’s told. He uses the cup he had from earlier this morning and refills it through the refrigerators’ cold water tap option. A calm silence settles over the three of them as they take their respected seats at the table with brunch, the only sounds are made of the scraping of cutlery on the dishes.

Dan’s thoughts start to wonder as he consumes his toast, he knows that Phil might do something incredibly humiliating to him at any given chance, so he’d have to keep an eye out for the punk in and out of school. Hopefully, if he was feeling lucky, maybe Phil wouldn't do anything at all and just drop it. The chance was slim, but it was possible. 

Once he finishes, Dan chooses to stay at the table a little longer to dwell on his thoughts, slowly sipping in his drink. Pj goes back to the lounge room, Chris trailing after him with a quiet yawn appearing as he turns the corner. 

Dan smiles and rests his cheek on his palm, using his arm to keep his head up. His gaze goes to the back window, and with the lighting, he can see his reflection almost as if he were looking into a mirror. He's wearing a pair of short, dark denim jeans with a matching baby blue sweater that rests on the end on his shoulders and gives him sweater paws. His hair glows an almost golden haze a top his head. It bothers him more than he'd like to admit that he doesn't have his flower crown with him, having no clue where it would be now at this point. 

He sees his reflections' expression go sour, as if he'd thought of something cringy that'd happened in junior school. Maybe Mark might have his flower crown? He'd have to ask and find out tomorrow since he didn't have Mark's contact. Even though it wasn't one of his best flower crowns, he still liked how that one was, it was really pretty. 

\-----

Dan's packing up his stuff and is about to leave for his place when Chris slides next to him on the sofa. 

"Dude,"

"Mmm what?" Dan doesn't look up from his bag. 

"I feel like I've forgotten something important," Chris states. 

"You can say that again," Dan chuckles. 

"I feel like I'v-" 

"Okay, I didn't mean it literally!" Dan exclaims, looking at his friend. 

Chris does his little giggly thing and grins, obviously for some reason in a happy mood once again. 

Dan huffs a laugh, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder. He moves out to go the front with Chris following him, he calls a quick "Bye PJ!" to the guy and opens the front door. 

When he throws his bag into the passenger side, he turs around and gives his friend a hug. "Guess I'll see you at school tomorrow?" Dan says, pulling away from the hug. 

"Yeah, Cya dude," Chris says. 

Dan gives him a smile and gets into his car, quickly starting it up and driving back home. What had he forgotten that felt like something important had happened?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What up losers? Been a while since I updated, so have this short thing. 
> 
> (I wONDER what Dan has forgotten 😒😂)


	5. Chapter 5

It's Monday morning, and Dan's sitting at the table with his brother across from him, the both of them eating their respected cereals in a calm quiet. Suki is at his feet, laying on the floor (and on one of his feet) and patiently waiting for him to give her her morning feed of kibble. Today Dan had woken up earlier than he'd planned when he'd forgotten to shut his window the night before and the birds outside his window had started chirping up a storm at around six this morning. Suki couldn't even get the birds to get lost since Dan had shut his bedroom door to do his homework without any distractions last night. He also hadn't been able to find one of his jumpers this morning that he'd really wanted to wear so he'd gone with a pastel pink and blue sweater that cut off at just above his hip bones with text that read 'acid sugar' across the chest and some black full length tights. 

To say today is going great so far would be a lie. 

He finishes up his breakfast and rinses his bowl in the sink, Suki meowing loudly from her spot on the floor next to him. Dan scoffs and bats her away lightly with his socked foot so he doesn't stand on her before fixing her a bowl of the cat kibble they have stored in the pantry. She starts eating some of it before walking off to do what ever cats do, leaving a nearly full bowl of food. Dan huffs and rolls his eyes, typical cat. He walks back to his room to pack his bag and finish getting ready for a boring day ahead of him. 

"Ey, Adrian," Dan yells from his room. 

"Yeah?" he calls back from somewhere in the house. 

"You seen my pink vans?"

"No, you checked under your bed yet?"

"Yeah," he says, before checking under his bed and spotting them. "Never mind, found them." 

He can hear his brother snorting out a laugh from his spot in the house, knowing that his brother full well knew that he hadn't actually checked underneath his bed, as per usual. Dan chooses not to reply at all and slips his shoes over his white socks. He went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, giving himself a good look over before grinning to himself and taking his school bag with him to the front door. 

"See you after school," Dan exclaims as he's halfway out the door. 

"Bye," his brother says back. 

Dan shuts the door and heads to the bus stop, a small jump in his step as he breaths in the crisp morning air. He had Panic Station by Muse playing through his earphone as he walks up to the bus stop, him humming along to the lyrics. Dan notices that no one is standing at the bus stop yet and he has a mini panic, _was school actually on today?_ His question in soon answered when he sees Chris up the street. He gives a wave to Dan, to which he promptly waves back at his friend. 

"Chris, great to see you man,"

"Yeah, long time no see," he chuckles. 

"It's been months, _years_ even," 

The two share a laugh as the bus rolls up to the stop. 

\-----

When the bell finally rings, signaling the end of the lesson, Dan practically skips out of class with the rest of his fellow students and out to the area he sits at for lunch. Chris is already there, grinning as Dan walks over like the cat that caught the canary bird. Dan raises in eyebrow, slowing his walk as he approaches. 

"What's up with you?" he asks, setting his bag down and taking a seat across from his friend. 

"Not much," he replies, still grinning. 

Dan gives him a look. 

Before he can get an answer out of Chris, Peej and Tyler come over talking about an exam for a science subject they had together with Louise in tow, interrupting his chance. As they're talking, Chris joining them when they sit down, Dan tries to get Chris's attention to ask him what he was obviously cheery about. He knew something that Dan seemed to be missing, like he didn't knowing the meaning behind an inside joke that two people shared before him. 

After his fifth try, Dan grumbles and turns his gaze elsewhere from their table. He looks over at the spot that Phil usually is with his little party of addicts and emos to find the punk not there. It's a passing thought, but Dan wonders where he is and if he's okay and then why on earth he'd thought of those things for someone that didn't mean much to him. 

"-and then he was just letting it rip, hey Dan!" 

Dan's pulled by to the group when Chris says his name. "What?" 

"The party, where you got pumped with drinks, remember?"

"Not really, actually," Dan admits, he only had a rough idea because of Pj's explanation. 

"Oohhhhhh, that'd explain it then," Chris says, then laughs. 

Dan grumbles out something along the lines of "I hate you" and scowls, crossing his arms and turning away to pout. 

Chris finishes laughing, leaning on Peej for support whilst grinning and looking lovingly up at him. 

\-----

It's later on in the day, during a Music class when he's sitting at his seat next to Peej that Tom Ridgewell leans over his desk to get Dan's attention. 

"Hey, Dan," he says, quietly. 

"Yeah, what?" Dan looks up from his work to turn around and face Tom. 

"Do you remember much from the party on Saturday?" 

"What?" Dan screws his face up in confusion, what did this have to do with anything relating to Tom? Wait, had he done something to Tom at the party? Dan starts to internally panic, his eyes widen slightly. 

"Chris told me you didn't remember much," he states. 

Dan huffs and rolls his eyes, of course Chris would. "No, I don't. But what's it to you?" 

"I was gonna say congrats, but I don't know if you know or not. I would assume you would though"

Now Dan's really confused. "About what?" He turns around fulling in his chair to face him. "What are we talking about?" 

Tom's face holds an expression of 'shit what have I done' as he's looking at Dan, now probably regretting trying to talk to him. Dan didn't understand what Tom was going on about now. 

"You know, the whole, Phil Lester fiasco." He rotates his hand in a circle motion when he says the last part.  

Dan groans and throws his head back, "Don't remind me."

Tom chuckles, "Yeah, good luck with him though." He sits back in his seat, ending the conversation between the two of them. 

Dan hums, turns around, and then squints his eyes in thought. What even was that conversation, it just left him with more questions then answers and Tom surely didn't look like he wanted to give out any answers. He decides to ask Pj if there was anything he missed out on telling him yesterday. 

"Hey, you didn't forget to mention anything in the rundown yesterday before I left, right?" he asks, leaning over Peej's side of the desk. 

"Not that I'm aware of," he replies, looking at him. "Why?" 

"Tom mention something about Phil from the party, I dunno why though, apparently someone to be congratulated on though," Dan informs, scratching his head. 

Pj sighs and leans back, "Chris was acting like he knows something, try asking him."

"I have," Dan says, "he's being too much of a shit to tell me though. "

 They share a look, then Pj shrugs, sitting back up properly and going back to his work. Dan groans in annoyance and goes back to his. 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titles, yay or nay?  
> Also, at this point I've gone over more words than this was meant to go for, so I don't know if that's a good thing or not. But enjoy never the less, might actually get some phan action next chapter, who knows?


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, Dan's sitting at the lunch table with Chris by his side. He's been trying to act unsuspicious all day, pretending like he didn't have a care for what information that Chris is holding back from him. But now, now is the chance to attack. 

"Hey Chris," he says, putting his left elbow on the table and resting his hand on it.

"What's up?" Chris turns to him. 

Dan raises his eyebrows, "I'm sure you know 'What's up'." 

Chris snorts, "oh right." 

His face surely holds his unimpressed look. "Yeah, I think if be great if you could tell me this major thing that I've seemed to have forgotten or not been told." 

His friend hums, before replying, "What if I didn't want to tell you and wanted to make your life so much more miserable than it already is?" 

Dan groans, rolling his eyes, "come on, man. Tell me the tea." 

"Nuh uh,"

He puffs his cheeks before sighing, "What am I gonna have to do to get you to tell me?"

Chris thinks for a moment, a smug grin still on his face, "How about... let's see, there's so many things I could get you to do." 

"Stop stalling," 

"Right-o, Mr I'm-so-impatient. Do you feel _any_ different from Friday before the party compared to today?" Chris asks. 

The fact Chris is still avoiding the question directly irritates Dan, he goes to fling back a sharp retort before pausing, does he actually feel different? 

"Not really.." he murmurs, still in thought. 

"Really?" Chris asks, his expression now something akin to disbelief. 

"Really," he answers, or maybe there was a tugging feeling in his gut for some reason. 

"I find that hard to believe, Howell," 

Dan scowls this time. 

Chris grins, "Truth be told I think you'll have to ask Lester.. when ever he turns  up to school next."

"What does he have to do to this? Tom said something about it in one of my classes and it's confusing me," Dan admits, still annoyed at himself for somehow forgetting (definitely no more alcohol for a while!) and how Chris won't spill the tea. 

"Because, as I said, you'll need to confront him about it, dude," he states. 

Dan sighs, going quiet. 

Chris gives him an apologetic smile and a hand on the shoulder, "Don't worry yourself over it, though, I don't think you noticed but your soulmark's changed." 

Dan looks at it, peaking out from his mass of bracelets on his inner wrist, noticing it's changed sightly. The cursive text was no longer inky black, but now had a slight mix of royal blue threaded throughout some of the words. Somehow he'd missed it, frustratingly.

His eyes widen, mouth gasping open like a fish out of water. 

"WHAT?!" 

\-----

Dan stares at the off white colour of his bedroom ceiling, brown eyes unfocused, thinking to himself about the days' previous events. His lips and eyebrows are pinched together in thought, mind wondering. 

Maybe something had actually happened at the party, he'd obviously found his soulmate or at least talked to them at some point and now he didn't know who it was.

I could have been anyone. 

Dan groans and lays his arm over his eyes. He didn't need to deal with this kind of drama in his life right now, especially with his forthcoming English formative due on Friday. Not to meantion a handful of people over the course of the day had approached him either congratulating or just giving him remorseful looks as they made eye contact. 

Dan is very confused on who it is. 

Dan also really wants to know who it is, obviously. 

He sits up, laying both his hands at his side and sighing. Suki mews from her spot on the end of his bed, curious to Dan's current behaviour. Dan reaches over to give her a smile and stroke her head. 

"What am I gonna do, Suki?" He asks, not expecting any response from the  cat. 

And then an idea pops into his head, maybe he should ask Phil tomorrow at school like Chris had suggested... if he's there, that is. He glances at his soulmark again, admiring how the words seem to practically glisten sleekly with the blue highlights. The juxtaposition between the aesthetic of the text and what it says makes it almost seem poetic, in a way, Dan thinks. Though, he'd never really aced the whole literacy thing, so he wouldn't be able to tell you.  

He stands off his bed, dusting himself off and putting his lilac and baby blue flower crown back on his head before heading over to play on his laptop for a while. Maybe he could try and figure out who was at the party last night, although it would be easy considering the event notification on facebook, it may take a while to actually find who he'd met.  

Scrolling through the list of people who went, he takes notice of all the people who have already found their soulmates. Him having found out either through being told or noticing their soulmarks having colours. 

_Anthony, Dolan, Ethan, Jenna, Séan._

Dan purses his lips and frowns, maybe it might be more harder than he'd originally thought. Trying to remember the events of that fateful night is difficult and giving him a headache. 

He picks up a glass of water from the table and takes a sip, still scrolling with his right hand. 

_Matt, Phil, Poet.._

There went Phil again, popping up unnecessarily more often in Dan's life then the average known person, but also causing the tug to pull in his gut for just a moment. Who was Phil to think he could make Dan feel like this? And probably without a care as well. 

A pin sound resonates from Dan's computer, and he sees a notification for facebook. 

' _Phil Lester has sent you a friend request._ '

"Strange," Dan mutters, swishing the water in the cup around before placing it back down and scoiting closer to the screen. He decides to leave it for the moment, not wanting to look like a complete weirdo by responding straight away. He continues his search, trying to narrow down the list to a bearable number. 

It isn't until later, when he's drifting off into unconsciousness, that the friend request sent from Phil passes through his mind for a moment before going into the abyss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time update, eh? That's a bit embarrassing whoops, hope you enjoyed this small update though.   
> Wonder when Dan will figure this puzzle out?


	7. Chapter 7

The awful buzz of an alarm clock is what wakes Dan up this fateful Wednesday, sitting out in his bed with wild bed-hair and bleary eyes. The birds, thankfully, aren't chirping their heads off yet and the cat is laid out over the end of the bed, keeping his feet warm.

"Good morning, Suki," he pats the cat, running his hand through her long fur.

He starts his morning routine after a few minutes, getting through it rather quickly and leaving him plenty of time to relax with his phone on the sofa. His brother had been violently ill when he'd gotten home yesterday, so he's most likely still in his bedroom being sick. 

This leaves the house quiet. 

Questionably quiet. 

Dan opens up facebook on his phone, ready to scroll through some memes when he sees the notification from Phil that'd he'd forgotten to get to earlier yesterday. 

"Oh," he mumbles.

He clicks onto Phil's' profile, just to check it's the one from school before he accepts it. His page had the obvious emo stuff he'd expected from the punk, and then he smiles to himself, because,  _it's_   _typical Phil_. He sees a repost for a live Muse concert that had been in town a couple months ago, with the caption just being a emoji for a music note. Dan stares at it for a bit, did Phil like Muse too? When was that a thing that had happened, Dan wonders, biting his lip in thought. 

It isn't long until Dan is running to the bus stop because he hadn't kept an eye on the time. The bus is just pulling up as Dan makes it, Chris throwing a cheeky look over his shoulder as they board the bus together. 

"Dude," Chris starts as they sit down. 

"Don't," Dan warns, "I just lost track of time."

"Doing what?"

Dan can feel his face heating up now, "That's none of your concern."

"Wow, I can feel the embarrassing context of what ever that is radiating off you," Chris chuckles, he leans nearly over the back of his seat to bring himself closer to his friend. "I bet it's something juicy."

"You wish," Dan scoffs, trying to brush him off, shoving his shoulder. 

"Aww, I'll find out one way or another," 

Dan pouts at him. 

 

\-----

Phil isn't here, again. 

It still bothers Dan, maybe he'd been found out by some strict teacher and had decided to move his seating area, he hopes, wishing Phil wasn't actually trying to avoid him for something he had no memory of. He tunes to keep talking to his friends, or more just listen to them talk as background sounds as he goes onto facebook. He sees a post from Mark, giving an overview of his party and the stuff that had been left behind from the other guests, a few jokes here and there. The comments are a mess of people just talking and chatting about general events from Saturday. 

One in particular catches his eye. 

  * Anthony: 'i can't believe how much dan drank omg XD'
  * Mark: 'Wait, why am I only finding out about this now?'
  * Anthony: 'cause you suck'
  * Mark: '>:('
  * Ryan: 'he drank enough to rival @jack'
  * Jack: 'Even i'm surprised'
  * Mark: 'Did anyone film it?'
  * Jack: 'Ask Pj, maybe he might know someone'
  * Anthony: 'ian did'
  * Mark: 'Get him to send it to me!'
  * Anthony: 'whats the magic word'
  * Mark: 'Please'
  * Anthony: 'link to the video: inserted link'



Dan clicks the link, taking it to Ian's page where there was heaps of stuff posted, mainly about himself but a few of the events that also must have happened. He scrolls until he finds the video of himself, watching the full of it. It start with him and Chris taking their shots with people, including Ian, egging them on. This continues until the video finishes at Dan cheering and Pj taking Chris away. 

Dan rolls, his eyes, not finding anything helpful there. He scrolls back up until he sees a video with Phil shown on the thumbnail. He clicks play. The view is from outside, Ian recording as Ryan and Shane were arguing over if ghosts were real or not before Phil comes over and interrupts, supporting Ryan. He doesn't appear drunk but his holding a bottle, talking animatedly with the pair, Ian putting his own thoughts in. 

Dan then sees the camera pan to Dan racing out the back door. Ian starts yelling unintelligible words and shaking the camera as though he had forgotten he was recording momentarily. He camera steadies back on video Dan as he starts vomiting in the bushes. 

Dan replays the video again, it jogs something in the back of his mind, possibly a memory, but he can't quite reach it. He relays it a third time before Louise looks over at his phone screen. 

"Are you watching Ian's videos?"

Dan squeaks, covering his phone screen. "No!"

She raises and eyebrow, "What ever you say hun, anyway, did you see the one where Felix had gatecrashed the party?"

"No.."

She pulls her phone out. "Here, let me show you." 

He then watches what she shows him, hoping she wouldn't ask about his shifty behaviour, not noticing the look of concern Chris was giving him from across the table. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hopefully I should get this finished soon.. as if lol!


	8. Chapter 8

Dan watches the video, not entirely paying attention until he hears the sound of a car horn and people quickly start chatting. It's only after a moment when the camera holder talks to someone next to them, Dan assumes it's one of the few people from a group that he avoids as he doesn't know or remember their name, that there's suddenly a loud crash followed a jeep is flying out of the darkness and into the yard with people now screaming. The video continues to where the camera holder goes up to the jeep with Felix holding a helmet in his hand with a 'oh god I could have died' expression on while chuckling and talking with wild eyes to Ken. 

"Don't worry, apparently no one got hurt, it was a planned thing with a couple of his friends," Louise laughed at seeing Dan expression of horror. 

"How did I miss that?!"

"You were out cold after you ended up vomiting, Jack carried you inside and left you on the sofa near Chris, Pj and me. Did no one tell you that?" She asks.

"No.. never really asked," Dan admits.  

"How do you not ask about what you did?" Louise scoffs. "You're a wonder sometimes, Dan."

Dan huffs, "Yeah."

 

\-----

It's Thursday at first break(recess) that Dan texts Mark asking if he's seen Phil around, replying that, yeah, he'd seen him sitting with Ryan's group over the past few days. He also asks Dan is something was up and Dan replies saying he isn't sure. 

Second break he decides to confront Phil. He knew that Ryan would be at a meeting and Shane and Sarah would probably be late from the tuckshop (canteen) like usual, so it'd be best to attack then. Even with the slight fear of Phil still being super angry about getting shoved by him at the party, he attempts to ignore it, walking over and leaning against the wood work building and going on his phone to look more casual. After a little while, he sees Phil walk out from the corner of the building and continue walking straight, so that he doesn't immediately see Dan until he starts walking towards the punk. As he closes in on him, Phil turns around to face Dan. 

"Phil," he says cautiously, but still in a friendly manner, "how are you?"

Phil looks around him, supposedly looking for other people, before his eyes settle on Dan, a stern look on his features. Dan is suddenly captured by Phil's eyes, a shining sensation of mostly blue with mixtures of yellow and green flecked in, he can see how the punk's eyes show a slight fear in their deep depths. Dan's own eyebrows pull together slightly.

"Good," Phil mumbles out, his voice smooth but with a slight rasp, he puts his back pack down at the table. 

"That's good, now I wanted to talk to you about something-" 

"No."

Dan pauses, blinks his eyes and looks back into Phil's. 

"Pardon?"

"No, you left your flower crown at the party and I don't intend on helping you."

Dan splutters a bit, his confidence quickly shrinking by the minute, especially when he hears Madej's voice from behind them, his tone mocking, probably talking about one of the teachers. 

"But-"

"I said, no," Phil says firmly, folding his arms and standing menacingly, using their small height difference to his advantage. 

"I wanted to talk to you about something else," he says quietly, aware of their audience, who were now sitting down on the opposite of the table to where they were standing. 

"What could you possibly want to talk about with me?" Phil asks, also keeping his voice low, raising his eyebrows in question. 

Dan notices his lip piercing, sidetrack thinking about how much that must of hurt to get. He gets nervous, but a slight anger settles in him for some reason (unknown to Dan), making him want to leave in frustration. "Uhh, um... actually, you know what," Dan steadies himself again, "I don't want to deal with this right now. I just wanted to talk to you about- but now you obviously don't want to. Good bye, Phil." 

He finishes their conversation by turning away and hurriedly walking off, away from Phil, and Shane and Sarah, who were now curiously onlooking, and back towards his table. He wrapped his arms around his stomach as he could feel Phil's eyes burning into his back until he turned the corner, his cheeks flared with the warmth of a blush and his stomach felt queezy. He tugs at his sleeves with his fingers as he walks back to his friends, his body curled in on himself with his shoulders pulled closer to him. Pj seems to pick up it immediately when he walks up to them. 

"Dan," he says, "are you okay?"

Dan stays quiet for a moment, "Honestly? I could feel better."

Pj furrows his eyebrows, sitting closer to Dan to keep their conversation more private and to be able to comfort him more. 

"What's up?" His tone suggests he's sincere. 

"I'm sick of Phil, like, I just wanted to talk to him but he's being such an, an ass! Like, I honestly just wanted to talk about what's happening between us, cause something must be happening." He tries to keep himself from getting too upset, but it bothers him to no end and makes him more frustrated. "It's not that hard to be nice to people."

Pj rubs Dan's shoulder in a supportive manner, "Understandably, I mean, he's kind of an asshole. He sits with hardly anyone so that really shows how nice he is to other people."

"Yeah," Dan chuckles, rubbing his eye with the palm of his hand. "I guess so."

Pj looks up, giving Chris a look, since he had been looking at his boyfriend curiously before. He hums, thinking.

"Maybe he just didn't want people talking to him," Dan murmurs, looking down at his lap. He frowns, there isn't a single time Dan can recall where someone besides Shane M had approached Phil in any given circumstance and decided to deal with his personality. He looks up at Pj, "Do you think he's like that because no one asks to be his friend, or tries?"

Pj considers this for a moment, "Quite possibly. I've always known him to give off the vibe that he didn't want anyone talking to him ever since the start of middle school. Maybe he just doesn't like people's company." 

"Oh," Dan says quietly, rubbing his elbow. He had transfered schools halfway through middle school, but it had been in senior school that he had only really started to notice Phil, since then, he hadn't ever forgotten about Phil. 

Pj pats his shoulder and then takes his arm back, "Better?"

"Better," Dan replies with a small smile. 

Pj smiles back, and turns back to Tyler, who he'd been talking to before Dan had come over. Every now and then just checking to make sure he is still okay.

Dan sits in silence for a bit, thinking to himself with a spaced out expression while looking down at his hands on the table.

There has to be a reason as to why Phil didn't want to talk to Dan, maybe he'd really done something stupid at the party and hadn't realized it yet. The thought made his cheeks flush again in embarrassment. If he'd humiliated either one of them, there was going to be no way they'd be able to live up to that.

Everyone would always remember. 

Dan purses his lips.

He did not like the thought of that at all, he had a dignity and school yard statud to uphold. Maybe he could try talking to Phil over facebook, he could possibly be a more chatty person when not in the physical presence of other people. 

A smile found its way onto Dan's lips with a happy feeling settling in his stomach. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright folks, got one more term left of school so I'll be focusing on that before I can on this. So there may be a while until I can update next ^^  
> Enjoy


End file.
